There’s too many threads! Condense them down and make sub threads. And when a topic gets closed move it to an archive of some kind so people don’t have to scroll for miles looking at dead closed threads. If they want to look at inactive stuff they can go to the archive folder or whatever storage house you want for it.

I remember the last time a special little snowflake made a recommendation like this. It spawned a thread that reached such a large number posts, it almost broke the site. So they shut that thread down and we started a sequel. Eventually, they had to shut that one down as well. Same with the third, fourth, fifth, and....crap, I can't remember which sequel number we're on now. But so far the latest is at over 100,000 posts.

I am pretty sure we screwed up the site several times with those threads! :D

Along the lines of using the inner sea gods as stand ins for the Greek pantheon, I would use Calistria as Aphrodite, and not Shelyn. Calistria is lust, yearning, ambition, which fits Aphrodite far better in my mind than real love, art, and beauty of Shelyn.

It almost seems like you would split the stories. There are plenty of stories where Aphrodite would be more like Shelyn, but also many where Aphrodite would be more like Calistria.

The big thing that makes it Greek would be city states. Each one should have a thing they are known for. For example the democracy city-state, the warrior city-state, etc.

City-states were often run by kings called tyrants, I like the idea of one being run by a Titan in disguise who is the king. With the cannibalism theme maybe a ghoul city state. There has to be one modeled on Athens, and one on Sparta. The prophecies of the Oracles is a huge theme, but how to tie that to the loss of prophecy? Maybe they are still hiding that they lost it, since it has only been 100 years.

My current guess based on what I see in the release schedule, is a Taldor/Qadira AP. 3 of the 5 original PFS faction Players Companion will have been updated as campaign setting books. This is assuming that we get a Cheliax book in July.

Not sure if I want to see the gods of greece as reinterpretation, servants of those gods, or as a pantheon on to itself.

I am not a fan of doing that. As i would like them to do something like with what they did with the Osirian Pantheon . maybe make the Greek gods a Iblydos sub-region Pantheon.

My question for that though becomes why are all of these gods coming from Earth to Golarion. As a once in awhile thing cool, but if ever area we go to just gets the gods from Earth that would be a little weird.

The other thing that makes that weird is that the Greek Gods are one of the pantheons that are often modeled after for any sort of pantheon. (You can't tell me Shelyn isn't modeled on Aphrodite). The Egyptian one is pretty distinct that way. Definitely something to think about.

The only gods we know for sure is in Casmaron are Sarenrae and Irori. Based on the Inner Sea gods that are in Tian Xia, I would expect Abadar, Desna, Lamashtu, Pharasma, and Shelyn to also be worshiped there.

I can't speak in any official capacity about this, but from my understanding OA isn't so much "New Age" as in crystals and all that nonsense, so much as it is golden-era mysticism, the kind of stuff you'd see in the early 1900s and fantasy interpretations.

That's why I'm still baffled by the inclusion of the kineticist class. It doesn't fit into that at all. It falls more in line with the whole "ESP" thing from the 20th century than 19th/early 20th century mysticism, spiritualism, hermeticism, etc.

I like the idea of the book, but if I ever run a game with that sort of theme I'm disallowing the kineticist.

To me the kineticist seems to fit perfectly with the eastern mysticism section of the book. Chakras, auras, etc..

For some reason, I now believe that post Hell's Rebels we are getting a Taldor/Qadira AP (some mix of the two). If that is the case would a Gazetteer of Kelish make sense depending on where the AP travels to?

One of the fun things about this job is watching you try to sneak hints out of me about upcoming adventure paths.

Well I am glad that is one of the fun things about your job, and not an annoyance. :D

For some reason, I now believe that post Hell's Rebels we are getting a Taldor/Qadira AP (some mix of the two). If that is the case would a Gazetteer of Kelish make sense depending on where the AP travels to?

I thought FR became the official edition for 3E. I don't remember any greyhawk books for 3.5.

Greyhawk was the assumed base setting for 3 and 3.5, however they basically did nothing to develop that setting other then through RPGA. It was kind of a weird way to do a base setting, especially when you look at how Paizo does it for Pathfinder. :D

WotC idea was here is a base world that we are not going to touch so you can do what you want with it.

Because I didn't know there was. As we do more and more products, I'm involved in fewer and fewer of them overall. I haven't actually interacted with Lost Treasures much more than to give it a quick look through during the approval phase to ensure that from a view from the mountain top that it did the job.

What about the people who do Star Wars (fantasy flight games?) that seems to have been a hit and they seem to be churning out high quality, regular releases.

They do! I really don't know enough about them to make an educated remark, though. I know that it's possible to turn out really good work and still not be making enough to put food on the table. Especially if you use a lot of freelancers you can look much bigger than you are.

Based on the increase in size of the FFG offices, I would say they are doing pretty well. However that may be supplemented by their board and miniature games.

There was a bit of a discussion of a Atlas of Golarion in the Developing Pathfinder seminar, see the latest Know Direction podcast. It would be something I would like to see, but I am not sure if it is something that they have enough individual country maps to do it properly yet.

Is art or cartography more expensive for a book? Or are they about the same?

Art is a little bit more expensive than cartography. Both are MUCH more expensive than the words.

Hmm, so an Atlas of Golarion could be a pricey prospect then, although there is probably a lot of maps you could recycle.

If you did a map book like that would you think it was a good idea to do either a more detailed World map? How about maps of each continent with minimal detail (countries, a few cities, mountains, lakes, etc only)?

WotC heavily supported Greyhawk as well, most of it in conjunction with other organizations, granted, via their living GreyHawk.

There was a ton of cross buying TSR's stuff. A great majority who bought the lesser settings, also bought most of the larger settings as well.

But with WotC, the dilution was magnified among many different campaign settings simply because of all the 3pp stuff (heck, even Paizo is not WotC these days, and it was a direct competition of D20 with WotC during the 4e days).

With so few, it doesn't take many to be not as accepted as the others to have the same problems.

3e actually had more official ones than 3.5 if you include OA in that mix as well as Modern (One of my favorites by the way) and SW...but that is more strictly D20 rather than D&D.

Let's look at it if the dividing lines actually was a factor...you could say you have 12 campaign worlds under TSR. So if people ONLY bought into one campaign, as you say, and there is 12 dollars, than each campaign only gets one dollar, and TSR gets $12 irregardless of whether it is one campaign, or twelve campaign worlds.

However, under the WotC model, the people still have $12, but they only put out 3 worlds. Hah! You say, that means they should get all $12...right...with each getting $4 a piece! However, it had competition. Instead of WotC putting out all those worlds, instead you had 120 different worlds...and if they split it evenly, that means that only 10 cents is spent on each one, and WotC only gets 30 cents (much less than anything else) of that whole.

This is one reason they probably wanted to go with the GSL and a more restrictive license. It gets tough when you see a majority of gamers money going to other companies instead of your own, especially when it's off of your own system that they are making a profit!

So multiple campaign worlds, doesn't make much sense in that light when you have built into your own system of production a dilution of your own material due to third parties.

Now more into...

You are missing a view key differences between the two. TSR didn't print or cost products for that split audience. If you cost s book correctly you can split the market for it without an issue. The planscape box set comes up for this one all the time. What should have happened was the box gets developed, production figures out what that will cost, and then sales sets the price. TSR often set the price first, dev made what they wanted, and production produced it.

And TSR overprinted for the demand, see the entirety of the Buck Rodgers line.

WotC often did one off books, a Dragonlance, CoC, etc. those don't split you market as much. TSR often did full product line support for every setting, whether it warranted it or not.
3rd party publishers don't split your costs and profits. Remember that the majority of what WotC did was rules, not setting material for 3E. Which meant any setting could use some, if not all of WotC's books.

I am not sure pulling an entire other earth pantheon whole sale is a good idea. I think it worked for the Egyptian one since they are all anthropomorphic.

Also remember that the rumor is that like the Dragon Empires, Casmaron will have a different core 20 deities. I would guess most of the newer gods, except for Irori won't have a place in Casmaron. Abadar, Desna, Irori, Lamashtu, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Shelyn all seem like safe bets since they are in the Dragon Empires as well.

All of the important greek gods are anthropomorphic. It's only once you start reaching back into the family tree, with the protogenoi where they start getting weird. I'd also point out that while the vast majority of the egyptian gods are anthropomorphic, there is a notable exception in Apep.

It's also entirely possible to have a separate 20 core deities like the Dragon Empires had while still giving Iblydos it's unique greek pantheon, just like the inner see has it's twenty core and Osirion happens to have twenty extras that fell out of worship before being picked up again. Iblydos is one small part of Casmaron, not the whole thing.

I'm simply of the opinion that having the egyptian pantheon being the one real world pantheon to have a presence while having the greek pantheon be co-opted by the pathfinder core would be rather jarring. I don't think it's the kind of trick you get to do just once.

On the subject of Casmaron's pantheon, I'd like it if it has a few different carry overs from the Inner Sea core than the Dragon Empire carry overs. Having the same deities appear in all three pantheons gives the impression that they're a step above the others.

At the very least, I'd switch out Lamashtu for Asmodeus.

Since Lamashtu has already been mentioned as being in Iblydos, I have a feeling we know which way Paizo is planning to go with her. See the Baphomet article in Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth.

We know that the Cyclopes had a couple of main areas in Casmaron, one of which was in Iblydos. We also know that there was a major event that destroyed all of the cyclopes empires.

In greek myth the Titans and Cyclopes were related so maybe they were part of the Titan rebellion. That could have been the cause of the collapse of the empire. If not maybe the Titans sided with Rovagug.

So as it turns out, apparently Lamashtu has been busy in Iblydos. Although that might have more to do with the fact that just about every greek monsters is something crossed with something else. I think I will look at the Cyclops next.

Minotaurs: We know that Baphomet was the first minotaur and was created by a vile act of Lamashtu. However there is also the mention in Classic Monsters Revisited, that Lamshtu gifted the town of Tulo with a two headed calf which the town destroyed in horror. Lamashtu then caused all the women to become impregnated with minoatur babies. The town locked them in a maze for 10 years, after that the minotuars left the maze and killed the town.

The classic story is that King Minos didn't sacrifice the bull provided by Posideon and he had Aphrodite curse the king's wife Pasiphae to fall in love with the bull. Then Daedalus, made a hollow bull for her to use. Also he built the labyrinth that the minotaur was housed in.

I like the idea of using some from all of those stories, expecially something with Daedalus as possibly an alchemist or an expert. I am not sure if Paizo is still going to use the old story from CMR. There is no more mention of the city of Tulo, however that could be because it is in Iblydos, or the fact that everyone there died.

So Titans, there are 4 types of Titans in the Bestiaries, Elysian, Fomorian, Hekatonkheires, and Thanatotic. From those bestiaries the Titans rebelled against the gods, were betrayed by the Elysian titans, and banished from Material Plane. The Fomorian and Thantotic were banished to the Abyss, the Hekatonkheires were banished to the furthest reaches of the multiverse (same place Zon-Kuthon went?).

I like the idea of at least one Titan has escaped and is either trying to destroy the world or pull worshipers from the gods to himself. In greek myth there are the Tyrants, which are like kings, but what if the Tyrants were actually Titans.

I am not sure pulling an entire other earth pantheon whole sale is a good idea. I think it worked for the Egyptian one since they are all anthropomorphic.

Also remember that the rumor is that like the Dragon Empires, Casmaron will have a different core 20 deities. I would guess most of the newer gods, except for Irori won't have a place in Casmaron. Abadar, Desna, Irori, Lamashtu, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Shelyn all seem like safe bets since they are in the Dragon Empires as well.

The problem I have with directly correlating Gorum to Ares is that at least in the Athenian version of the myths - which is what everyone goes with - Ares was a coward.

I think the whole point though is to play fast and loose with those myths. Paizo doesn't make products that directly copy them. However they take the standard troupes and put their own twist on them and tie them to their world. So there is no reason you can't tweak the myths so that the God of War isn't a coward.

You almost have to tweak them since very few of the Golarion gods are CN and most of the Greek ones are.